WASHINGTON – Because of the investigation led by three University of South Florida researchers, and because of exemplary journalism by the Tampa Bay Times, we now have an intensely discomforting but welcome enrichment of American literature.

It requires artistry to write beautifully about children suffering at the hands of evil men, and from the riveting first sentence of his slender new novel “The Nickel Boys” - “Even in death the boys were trouble” - Colson Whitehead’s prose unfurls with controlled fury as he reimagines life at what was the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. The fact that Whitehead never raises his authorial voice enhances its wallop.

Boys in Trouble

The boys were trouble even as corpses because, in Whitehead’s reimagining, the Nickel Academy had been closed after many decades and developers had plans for an office park on part of the land.

The plans were, however, impeded by the discovery of “bones and belt buckles,” all those “fractures and cratered skulls, the rib cages riddled with buckshot” and other residue of boys who died at the hands of sadists, sexual predators and others who ran the school for their private fun and profit.

Fifty-one bodies had been unearthed by the time Whitehead’s novel was published, more are probably yet to be found, and the final count will not provide finality about how many were dumped in what the boys called Boot Hill.

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Pallbearers Mack Campbell, left, and Leo Barnes place a casket of one of the victims on a rolling cart to put him in his final resting place. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Pallbearers Mack Campbell, left, James Jackson, center, and Leo Barnes, carry in a casket of one of the victims. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Pallbearers Mack Campbell, left, James Jackson, center, and Leo Barnes place a casket on a rolling cart to place a victim in their burial site. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Pallbearers James Jackson left, and Koran Rouse carry a casket of a victim as the place him at his burial site. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

A red rose is placed on top of each casket as they are removed from the hearses. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

A red rose is placed on top of each casket as they are removed from the hearses. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

A service is held for family and friends of the eight victims who died during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Rhonda Dykes, the great great granddaughter of a former Dozier School for Boys employee, reads a poem at a service held for eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914. The victims were placed in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Jared Evans, left, and his cousin Rhonda Evans listen as Pastor Johnny Lee Gaddy prays. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Pastor Johnny Lee Gaddy, a member of the White House Boys, hosts a short service for member of the White House Boys. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Gaddy was a student at the all boys school from 1957 - 1961. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Charles Fudge, a member of the White House Boys, listens as pastor Johnny Lee Gaddy speaks at a short service. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Fudge was at one time a student at the all boys school. Alicia Devine/Democrat

James DeNyke, a member of the White House Boys, right, sits with his arm around his wife, Betty Harley, as pastor Johnny Lee Gaddy prays. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. DeNyke attended the all boys school from 1964 - 1966. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Jerry Cooper, center, a member of the White House Boys, speaks with other members after the service. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Cooper attended the all boys school from 1960 - 1961. Alicia Devine/Democrat

Rhonda Dykes, the great great granddaughter of a former employee of the Dozier School for Boys, speaks about what the service held for several of the lives lost means to her. Eight of the victims from the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. Alicia Devine/Democrat

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In Whitehead’s novel, Elwood, an African American boy abandoned in Tallahassee by his mother, is being raised by his grandmother, whose father died in jail, arrested for “bumptious contact” after a white woman accused him of not getting out of her way on a downtown sidewalk.

Elwood is bound for college until he is falsely accused of stealing a car and is consigned to Nickel, leaving behind his treasured possession, a record of “Martin Luther King at Zion Hill.” He is driven to the “reform” school by “a good old boy with a meaty backwoods beard and a hungover wobble to his step. He’d outgrown his shirt and the pressure against the buttons made him look upholstered.”

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Gene Luker, one of the White House Boys, points himself out in a decades-old photo from the Dozier School for Boys(Photo: Ryan Dailey/Democrat)

The Dozier school opened in 1900, and at times took children as young as 5. On most nights at the Nickel school, “the only sounds were tears and insects,” but on other nights an industrial fan was turned on to muffle the boys’ screams when they were beaten by Black Beauty, a three-foot leather strap with embedded sheet metal that “slapped across the ceiling before it came down on your legs.” There was “splatter on the walls where the fan had whipped up blood in its gusting.” “The white boys bruised differently than the black boys and called it the Ice Cream Factory because you came out with bruises of every color.”

Pallbearers Mack Campbell, left, James Jackson, center, and Leo Barnes place a casket on a rolling cart to place a victim in their burial site. Eight of the lives lost during the fire at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. in 1914, are in their final resting place at Boot Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The bodies were exhumed by a University of South Florida anthropologist over four years ago. (Photo: Alicia Devine/Democrat)

Whitehead, a Pulitzer Prize-winner for his 2016 novel “The Underground Railroad,” jumps ahead to life after a Nickel boy leaves at age 18. And in his novel’s prologue, he writes of Nickel boys’ reunions featuring “shared darkness.”

America, however imperfect – Americans do not want to know what goes on in their prisons, where a not-insignificant portion of the nation’s rapes happen - is much better now. More people – public interest lawyers, journalists – are alert and watching. And perhaps more will be because of Whitehead’s searing reminder that what happened not long ago, and here, was not unthinkable.

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Joe McCann found an album of songs recorded by the Dozier School for Boys choir in a box of records at an auction. Here he listens to the record for the first time.
Hali Tauxe/Democrat

Nothing – no cruelty – is. Yet still we need reminding. When Primo Levi arrived in Auschwitz parched after a brutal train journey, he reached for an icicle to slake his thirst. When a guard yanked it away from him, Levi asked “Why?” The guard replied, “Hier ist kein warum“ (Here there is no why).

The death camps were an extreme form of – perhaps the logical culmination of – what Whitehead calls a “culture of impunity.”

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Democrat files
A 2013 photo provided by the University of South Florida shows where researchers found some remains of 55 people in a graveyard at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.
A 2013 photo provided by the University of South Florida shows where researchers found some remains of 55 people in a graveyard at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.(Photo: Democrat files, Democrat files)

When some people have unrestricted and unreviewable power over others – when no one can be compelled to answer for his actions when asked: “Why?” - some of those with power will behave like beasts simply because they can. And because absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This melancholy fact about the human species was underscored last year in a nonfiction book about a lawless sheriff who bestrode Florida’s Lake County in the 1950s (“Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found” by Gilbert King).

Do you wonder how the Nazis managed to find people willing to work as concentration camp personnel? It was not that difficult.

George Will is a nationally syndicated columnist. His email address is georgewill@washpost.com.

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